With shining eyes, Loki stared at them with a large grin, more specifically, towards Riveria. Riveria noticed her teasing stare and immediately took some distance from Kisuke, "What's wrong? Please go on~."
Riveria froze for a moment before feigning a cough, "Ehem... It was nothing... It's true that I could hold back a Level 8."
Loki already knew that she was lying before she could utter those words. She didn't exactly know what she could do now, but she estimated that she is probably already her strongest child if she was willing to hide it. Nevertheless, Loki agreed for her to lay low for now for the benefit of the whole Familia in case someone started something with the use of the 'Heaven Defier'.
Naturally, Kisuke already knew what Loki was thinking but didn't point any of it out. Instead, he continued his 'bragging', "Indeed~! And it's not just about fighting, but also her achievement in Magic outside of battles!"
Riveria wondered what Kisuke was going to say and didn't stop him, which she regretted immensely, "Most notably, the [Anti Weight Gain Magic]!"
Riveria instantly froze and asked with twitching lips and a pale face, "W-what are you talking about?"
"Of course, it's the Magic you use on a daily basis and kept on improving upon it since the moment you learned about it."
"Y-you're talking about weight reduction, right? So that it'll be easier to jump or fly?"
With a straight face, Kisuke denied it, "Nope. Not that. I'm talking about the Magic that expels sugar from your body to avoid gaining weight."'
"W-what... are you talking about!?" Riveria wanted to ask how he knew since she'd been keeping it secret from everyone because she was embarrassed by her laziness to move her body and actually exercise.
Kisuke was able to read her mind and made a large grin, "You think I wouldn't notice~? Ever since you started eating ice cream and cakes, you've been worried about your significant gain of weight so you forsake them. But I would guess you found a spell used for expelling poisons and modified it after figuring out that sugar is one of the main causes of weight gain."
"After that, you didn't just go back into eating those desserts, but also lost any semblance of control for quite some time."
"H-how!? I could have just been exercising, you know!?"
Kisuke finally put the final nail in the coffin, "I know you hate moving around when you want to study Magic, so I doubt that. Besides, I only noticed because there was a scent of sugar in the living room. Unless you're using a perfume made out of sugar, that's impossible."
"..." Riveria finally went quiet and covered her blushing face that spread until the tip of her long ears in embarrassment because it wasn't just about revealing her secret, but also Loki's unbelieving reaction and the restlessness moving beyond the door.
Kisuke was already thinking of stopping there and moving on to another topic, but after seeing Riveria's reaction, the little 'Devil' inside him had lit up in glee, "Ah~ Those were some good times~. I still remember her reaction when she first tried out all sorts of sweet treats from my hometown and was absolutely on cloud nine with them. But then, after a few weeks of her new addiction, the devastated expression she had when she slowly pinched her slightly flabby belly was priceless!"
Figurative steam was already coming out of Riveria's head as she further buried her burning face within her hands, 'He saw that!?'
Loki, on the other hand, was fully mind blown; even with her rich imagination, she couldn't picture Riveria's exact face at that time.
"And as expected of the Magic enthusiast... or maniac at this point, instead of properly exercising, she opted to just develop a spell that would support her eating habits. Oh my~ I still remember her crying face in delight when she ordered a ton of food in secret and lost herself-" Before Kisuke could finish his words, however, a fist filled with Magic Power suddenly flew and hit him squarely in his face. A very much well-deserved punch.
Kisuke instantly flew off his seat and crashed through the door, breaking its locks and revealing the people who were silently listening from the outside.
Lefiya, Tiona, Tione, Filvis, and Ais with Lysa on her head looked at him who was on the floor with stunned expressions, "My~ Good morning everyone. I didn't know you were here. I apologize for the noise this early in the morning."
The girls didn't know what to say or even do in this situation since Kisuke could still smile and greet them while he was laying on the floor with a clear mark on his right cheek. But they didn't really have to do anything as a cold atmosphere suddenly dropped on them and when they looked back, they saw Riveria, still with a red face, but with incredibly terrifying eyes staring at them and a smile as cold as a thousand-year-old glacier, "Excuse me, but we still need to talk."
The only thing they could do was nod furiously as Riveria dragged Kisuke back by one of his legs into the room as she locked the door again by freezing the gaps of the door. At the same time, Riveria also sealed the room so that no more sound would come out since from here on, they will be talking about the other side and what Riveria experienced in it in detail.
An hour later, Loki could only stare at the ceiling after Kisuke and Riveria left the room. While Riveria didn't reveal anything about the Evies trying to invade Earth, she showed her the recordings of the Azazel Cup from 7 years ago that blew away all of Loki's expectations. She thought that Kisuke was an anomaly from their world, while that was still true, but only to a certain extent.
An unprecedented amount of excitement filled Loki for the first time in a while as a crazed smile twisted her lips, 'What do I do...? I want to go there.'
But she knew that would be impossible as long as they were 'imprisoned' in this world, 'We're not even in control of our lives. So much for being a God.'
.
.
.
Since everyone was curious about Kisuke, Riveria had no choice but to introduce him, "So how should I destroy them?"
Riveria opened her mouth and was about to get angry. But after thinking about it, Riveria found some merit in Kisuke's words. Riveria rubbed her chin while staring at Kisuke, 'They are all kind people... But I don't want them to think that he's only leeching off me because of how they view me nor do I want them to think that he's holding me back.' At some point in time, Riveria already hated someone looking down on Kisuke, looking down on her trusted 'partner', even if they are her Familia members.
"If they invite you to a spar, just reveal the difference in skill.", replied Riveria after thinking about it.
"...Hey... They're not like before, are they? Do you want me to play around with them with weaker parameters? Isn't that a bit too hard?"
"I don't really know if you're being humble or just overestimating them...", Riveria then grinned, "But from what I heard, to get stronger faster, they only focused on fighting against monsters. Although they might have improved, there's just no way their anti-personal skills could have kept up."
"You saw them train?"
"Yep... Sadly, almost all of them went the same route as Issei Hyoudou. That isn't bad, but you have to be an extreme irregularity like Issei who has many tactical class techniques in his arsenal to make that work. Well... It's extremely effective with monsters with higher standards for defense and are just technically beasts, but against someone of the same level with the same intellect, they'll just be throwing punches at each other or it'll be a fight of numbers."
"...I think you're misunderstanding something.", Kisuke suddenly said.
Riveria tilted her head in confusion, "About what?"
"After reaching a certain level, it's a lot easier to go with the [Issei Route] as you talked about since most of the time, that's really all you need. If you think that being a 'Technician' is the way to go if you want to get stronger, you're wrong. Compared to a simple 'Fighter', it indeed is an advantage, but being a 'Technician' is a lot harder than you've imagined... Or should I say you're only around 'Technicians' to have that kind of view. In reality, if you remove our group, only Cao Cao, Ajuka, Azazel, and a small group of people could be considered 'Technicians'... In other words... We are rare so please don't set them up to your standards or you'll just be utterly disappointed."
Riveria's eyes widened and tried to process everything.
Seeing that she really had that misunderstanding, Kisuke sighed, "And it's not all advantages for 'Technicians'. After all, Issei couldn't have become as strong as he is now if he were one. There's just a difference of mindset that can't be equalized. More often than not, 'Fighters' are the ones that exceed expectations the most."